Well, it FINALLY stopped raining here in the evenings so I got out and decided to have a go at capturing some night scenes yesterday. I got out at 8:30pm and was planning to get a bus back home when I was done (last bus was at 11:30pm). As it happens, I was having so much fun that I completely lost track of time and when I glanced at my watch (thinking an hour or so had passed), it was 12:30am!!! Time definitely flies when you're having fun!! :)

Anyways, I went out and took some pics and I must admit I am so disappointed with the results. I took over a hundred pics (!!) and only a handful turned out remotely decent. In my opinion they're all pretty crap.....
I don't have a tripod as yet so I was basically leaning my camera on the ledge of a bridge the whole time. Each time a car passed over the bridge the vibrations made my camera shake which caused my image to blur...grrrrr! I had the mirror locked up when I was shooting and I had the 2sec self-timer on to minimise shake (my remote release is on the way!!) I was shooting in Av mode most of the time and experimented with different apertures....f/8 seemed to be the best one. Whilst in Av mode, I had my ISO on auto and my camera kept selecting ISO 1600. My pics at ISO 1600 had a lot of noise. I experimented with IS on and IS off and didn't really notice a big difference (I suppose the difference would be more evident if I was using a tripod). I tried out M mode too and reduced the ISO to 100. Reducing the ISO meant that my shutter speed slowed down which meant that I had to hold the camera still for longer which was difficult to do.

I know my pictures could have been vastly improved with a tripod and I will get out to take the same pics again when I get one. One of the things that I didn't like with my pics was the colour of the sky. I wanted the sky to look black and glossy and it just looked horrible. The colour in the pics is not the colour the sky actually was. Also, the light reflections in the water just weren't sharp (I imagine this is cos I didn't have a tripod). Also the bridge lights in some of the pics I took were shining like stars (I loved this!) but other times they just looked like the dull lights that they really were -I don't know what I have to do to make them shine all the time. The brightly coloured lights on the bridge came out so dull in my pics.....they were so vibrant and beautiful to my eyes :(

All in all it was a good experience and I had fun! I know that I could have taken better angles of pictures but I can experiment with that later once I can achieve a tack sharp picture.
I did learn a lot whilst shooting and I understand the relationship between aperture and shutter speed and ISO much better now I must admit.
I know I need a tripod and I think my images would have been better if they were all shot at ISO 100 with slower shutter speeds.
I would appreciate any advice at all, cc is more than welcome, I just want to improve! :)

I have no idea how to post pics on this forum so I hope this works!